Women physicians are channeled into primary care by subtle role-based prejudice

Evidence

Moderate mismatches may produce subtle prejudice that channels group members into certain role subtypes. Among US physicians, 47 percent of women but only 30 percent of men specialize in primary care, a specialty that requires communal traits (American Medical Association, 2000). The subset of physician roles that emphasize matched qualities lessen the potential for discrimination because they reduce the role incongruity (More & Greer, 2000). In effect, preemptive discrimination may occur because group members are channeled toward roles that appear to be congruous with their group’s stereotypical traits. This channeling is unlikely to be recognized as prejudicial because people regard themselves as helping others to seek out roles for which they are most suited. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 203

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the class/role-signaling thread: modern career channeling parallels how dress codes and roles encode who ‘belongs’ where.
• DEEPTHINKING: The insight that benevolent ‘matching people to suited roles’ is itself a mechanism of discrimination without animus is paradigm-nudging.